


Safety In Numbers

by Hambel



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-17
Updated: 2012-02-17
Packaged: 2017-10-31 08:24:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hambel/pseuds/Hambel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cowley believes that two’s company and three’s a crowd. It’s still difficult to leave the crowd, though, when one is lonely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safety In Numbers

Cowley sat in his car for a good five minutes after killing the engine, staring through the windscreen with unseeing eyes. He wasn’t nervous – he had no time in his life for nerves – but he was apprehensive. He was aware that one weak moment on his part would undo all of his good intentions and send him back to not being in control of his own life. 

Sighing, he pulled the key from the ignition and got out of the car. Procrastination was not one of his faults – he acknowledged and embraced each and every one of those – but it seemed that whenever these two men were involved, his sense of normality flew out of the window.

Bodie answered the door with a flourish and a welcoming smile after Cowley had announced his business to the intercom and, it seemed, to the whole street.

“Is this business or pleasure, sir?” Bodie asked, gesturing the Controller into the living room.

“Neither. Both.”

He looked around for a chair to sit on or a desk to hide behind and then there was Doyle, pressing a drink in his hand, brushing his fingers briefly before handing the other glass to Bodie.

Out of habit more than need, he raised the glass to his lips and drank, feeling the smooth burn as it slid down his throat.

Good whisky. Damned fine whisky. And they were damned fine men, too. His men.

He looked up to see them watching him: Doyle, lean and wiry, looking more like a rent boy than a trained killer and negotiator with obscenely tight jeans and a t-shirt that clung to every square inch of flesh; Bodie, with handsome boyish looks and a body that could pin you to any surface and keep you there without breaking into a sweat.

These men, _his_ men, took what life threw at them and moulded it to their way. An unconventional lifestyle, perhaps, but it was an unconventional path that they all trod and who should deny them this tiny oasis of existence?

Cowley finished off his drink and stood nursing his glass.

“I thought you ought to be aware,” he began, circling the glass in his hand, “that I feel we shouldn’t carry on with our…. arrangement --”

He stumbled over the word. They’d never given it a name before. It was one night of comfort that grew into more nights of, what? He didn’t know. He couldn’t begin to explain, not even to these two. These two men who’d tasted parts of him that doctors hadn’t even seen, who had traced every scar on his battered body with reverence and wonder, who had taken him to the heights of ecstasy and brought him gently back down again. It seemed wrong to trivialise all that with a single word, and he knew they needed no recognition of their actions.

Doyle pushed away from the wall with an easy grace that Cowley envied. “Miss Walsh?”

The enquiry was softly spoken and the glass swiftly plucked from his hand to be refilled. Cowley could see from the look the two agents exchanged that they’d already discussed this subject with each other.

“Aye, Miss Walsh,” he confirmed, relieved not to have to go into lengthy explanations. He took the offered glass with a nod of acceptance and gestured towards the sofa. “May I?”

“Of course,” Doyle answered, mirroring the arm movement.

“She wouldn’t…” Cowley paused as the sofa dipped and Doyle sat beside him. Bodie took the armchair nearest Doyle, sitting so far forward that their knees were almost touching.

Cowley smiled to himself, a mere flicker of his lips. Were they aware, these two, of the image they projected? Predatory and protective, on their own they were a force to be reckoned with, but together they were unstoppable, unbeatable, and how could anyone fail to surrender to their collective charms?

He closed his eyes and still it remained: the scent of two males in their prime; an awareness of danger yet a feeling of safety; the knowledge that anything could happen, but only on _his_ say so.

He felt the backs of Doyle’s fingers caress the side of his face from his cheekbone to his jaw, and cool lips pressed briefly over his own.

“You don’t have to explain,” Doyle murmured and the vibration shivered through Cowley’s body. “Are you staying tonight? For one last time?”

He heard Bodie move out of the chair and settle on the arm of the sofa. He reached out a hand and it made contact with a warm, solid thigh, flexing beneath his fingertips. It was tempting, but Cowley knew his own weaknesses, knew that just one more night would crack his resolve and bring it crumbling down.

“No.” The word rang harshly in his ears.

He opened his eyes. Doyle was still close, a warm, comforting presence, as was Bodie, watching and no less comforting or warm.

He said his goodbyes to them, not awkwardly as spurned lovers, but warmly, as colleagues and friends. The front door closed behind him and he made his way back to his lonely life.

Maybe he _should_ give Elizabeth Walsh a ring. While it was true that she could offer him nothing that he craved, she could give him stability, companionship and respectability – qualities that were highly regarded in his position as head of CI5.

He drove away to his mews flat, all too aware that his bridges weren’t burned, merely closed off for the duration.

And that was the way he intended them to stay.


End file.
